If you could have any piece of software

[GordonCopestake]

I need to create a piece of software for my final year project. I was thinking something astro related as that way it mixes my two interests and i will maintain enthusiasm for the project. I have a year to create it so it can be fairly complex. It must however be original work, no re-inventing existing software.

So my question is this: If you could have any piece of astronomy related software, what would you have? It would have to be something that isn't already out there and, within reason, be able to be coded within a year.

[GazOC]

How about something to do with photometry? What course are you doing Gordon?

[GordonCopestake]

Photometry wouldn't work as it would have to be a piece of software that can be evaluated without connection to any other devices. My tutors wont be able to test it easily and they are a funny lot hehe

Im doing a BSc in Computer Science and Information Technology.

Went to work for 10 years, made a lot of money and decided that i wanted a holiday, so i went back to school for 3 years. I start my final year in september but i need to have something to show for my final year project. Creating software isn't a problem, it's deciding on what to create it for thats the problem!

[GazOC]

I passed my BSc in Comp Sci and IT last year under similar circumstances (the except making lots of money part).

[GordonCopestake]

Well done Gaz, seems im following in your footsteps! What did you do your final year project on?

[GazOC]

Like you I looked around for Astro based projects, my project was the AI one (T496??) so I was looking for something like pattern recognition for star fields or selecting double star candidates based on proximity and similar magnitudes.

I ending up modelling a towns traffic control system using AI techniques.....

[MartinB]

Most of what I can think of has been covered. The closest I can think of is a program which shows what you can expect to see through scopes of different apertures, a range of EPs and different degrees of LP. I know there are programs around such as Astroplanner which show how much is visible in the FOV but they show images of the targets. What would be good is something that shows what the objects will actually look like - e.g M81 through an 80mm frac compared with a 600mm dob. Guess the hard part would be creating realistic images rather than the programming though

[Grant]

I've been thinking for awhile about a piece of software which you could load an image in to it, tell it what it is i.e saturn, m57 and the software automatically does all of the processing for you without anymore input. All of the settings etc... are determined automatically and at the end of it out pops a completed image or, in the case where different settings can bring out different things a series of slightly differently processed finished images comes out.

Or, wouldn't it be interesting if there was a piece of software which you input an image, tell the software what it is e.g moon and it automatically highlights recognisable objects e.g craters and labels them.

[GazOC]

Most of what I can think of has been covered. The closest I can think of is a program which shows what you can expect to see through scopes of different apertures, a range of EPs and different degrees of LP. I know there are programs around such as Astroplanner which show how much is visible in the FOV but they show images of the targets. What would be good is something that shows what the objects will actually look like - e.g M81 through an 80mm frac compared with a 600mm dob. Guess the hard part would be creating realistic images rather than the programming though

There used to be a program called "Telescope simulator" which did that, but I can't find it ....

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Would a dewobbler fir the bill? Feed in an AVI file taken in bad seeing and let the software transform the wobbly blob into something round or round ish frame by frame. Maybe tell it which frame is the right shape to get it started?

Captain Chaos

[GordonCopestake]

I have decided to create an astro logging piece of software as my project. Many people have expressed an interest in this idea. It would compliment the forum and allow people to share their observations within the community and enable others to comment and critique.

Would people be willing to take the time to fill in a simple questionnaire to allow me to collect some data. This is one of the hoops i need to jump through to complete my project.

The questionnaire is web based and shouldn't take longer than a minute to complete.

The URL is http://www.copestake.org/astro/questionnaire.php

Not sure if a new thread would get more notice